Harassed

State-controlled Sri Lankan television station Sri Lanka Rupavahini Corporation (SLRC) has sent four of its journalists on compulsory leave after they submitted a letter stating that their professional rights had been disrespected and damaged. According to the Free Media Movement (FMM), SLRC Producers' Union Chairman Kanchana Marasinghe, Organiser Herbert Kumara Alagiyawanna, Athula Peiris and

At a demonstration close to the Burmese embassy in Paris on 27 September 2007, Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association launched an appeal to the UN Security Council to stop the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations within the country. The actor Jane Birkin also joined the rally to condemn the brutal policies of the Burmese regime towards the democracy movement and the...

(JED/IFEX) - A weekend of media repression in Kinshasa has resulted in at least four journalists being questioned for several hours by the intelligence services, the closing of a private TV station, and the confiscation of a tape recording of an interview with a rebel leader. Stéphane Kitutu O'Leontwa, general manager of CCTV/RALIK (Canal Congo Télévision/Radio Liberté Kinshasa), Thierry Musenepo...

Palestinian journalists on Sunday announced a series of protests to demand that Hamas and Fatah stop targeting them. The announcement, made during several journalist demonstrations, came after a crackdown on newsmen in both the Fatah-controlled West Bank and the Hamas-run Gaza Strip. Embattled Palestinian reporters said such attacks had become the norm in the Palestinian territories. “Both Hamas...

Since fighting resumed in 2006 between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Tamil-populated Jaffna peninsula has become a nightmare for journalists, human rights activists and the civilian population in general. Murders, kidnappings, threats and censorship have made Jaffna one of the world’s most dangerous places for journalists to work in. Seven media...

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the censorship of six privately-owned Arabic-language dailies during the past five days in an attempt by the security forces to suppress reports about the arrests of eight alleged terrorists. “The vice-president announced the official lifting of censorship nearly a year ago,” the press freedom organisation said. “Now we regrettably see that this practice...

Russian journalist Larisa Arap has been released from a psychiatric clinic near the northern city of Murmansk where she had been held against her will for 46 days. The 48-year Arap, an active member of the opposition United Civic Front, was forcefully hospitalised in what she says was retribution for an article she had written denouncing abuse against patients at another local psychiatric clinic...

Palestinian cameraman Imad Ghanem who was badly injured in gunfire by Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip last month is still waiting to be allowed to leave Gaza and go to Egypt to be fitted with artificial legs. One month after asking Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak to investigate the circumstances in which Israeli soldiers fired on Ghanem on July 5 in the Gaza Strip, Reporters sans Frontières...

Hamas militiamen Monday prevented distribution of three Fatah-affiliated newspapers in the Gaza Strip and briefly detained the local agents of the dailies. This is the first time that the newspapers published in the West Bank were prevented from being distributed in the Gaza Strip, according to reports. Palestinian journalists said thousands of copies from the three newspapers were seized by Hamas...

Reporters Without Borders condemned judicial harassment of the Arabic-language daily “Al Watan Al An” on 24 July 2007, after the Casablanca prosecutor’s office released its editor, Abderrahim Ariri, but sent one of his reporters, Mostapha Hurmatallah, to Okacha prison pending trial. Arrested on 17 July after publishing a leaked internal security memo, both have been charged with “receiving...